Ricorditi, lettor, se mai ne l'alpe
ti colse nebbia per la qual vedessi
non altrimenti che per pelle talpe,
come, quando i vapori umidi e spessi
a diradar cominciansi, la spera
del sol debilemente entra per essi;
e fia la tua imagine leggera
in giugnere a veder com' io rividi
lo sole in pria, che già nel corcar era.
Sì, pareggiando i miei co' passi fidi
del mio maestro, usci' fuor di tal nube
ai raggi morti già ne' bassi lidi.
O imaginativa che ne rube
talvolta sì di fuor, ch'om non s'accorge
perché dintorno suonin mille tube,
chi move te, se 'l senso non ti porge?
Moveti lume che nel ciel s'informa,
per sé o per voler che giù lo scorge.
De l'empiezza di lei che mutò forma
ne l'uccel ch'a cantar più si diletta,
ne l'imagine mia apparve l'orma;
e qui fu la mia mente sì ristretta
dentro da sé, che di fuor non venìa
cosa che fosse allor da lei ricetta.
Poi piovve dentro a l'alta fantasia
un crucifisso, dispettoso e fero
ne la sua vista, e cotal si moria;
intorno ad esso era il grande Assüero,
Estèr sua sposa e 'l giusto Mardoceo,
che fu al dire e al far così intero.
E come questa imagine rompeo
sé per sé stessa, a guisa d'una bulla
cui manca l'acqua sotto qual si feo,
surse in mia visione una fanciulla
piangendo forte, e dicea: “O regina,
perché per ira hai voluto esser nulla?
Ancisa t'hai per non perder Lavina;
or m'hai perduta! Io son essa che lutto,
madre, a la tua pria ch'a l'altrui ruina.”
Come si frange il sonno ove di butto
nova luce percuote il viso chiuso,
che fratto guizza pria che muoia tutto;
così l'imaginar mio cadde giuso
tosto che lume il volto mi percosse,
maggior assai che quel ch'è in nostro uso.
I' mi volgea per veder ov' io fosse,
quando una voce disse “Qui si monta,”
che da ogne altro intento mi rimosse;
e fece la mia voglia tanto pronta
di riguardar chi era che parlava,
che mai non posa, se non si raffronta.
Ma come al sol che nostra vista grava
e per soverchio sua figura vela,
così la mia virtù quivi mancava.
“Questo è divino spirito, che ne la
via da ir sù ne drizza sanza prego,
e col suo lume sé medesmo cela.
Sì fa con noi, come l'uom si fa sego;
ché quale aspetta prego e l'uopo vede,
malignamente già si mette al nego.
Or accordiamo a tanto invito il piede;
procacciam di salir pria che s'abbui,
ché poi non si poria, se 'l dì non riede.”
Così disse il mio duca, e io con lui
volgemmo i nostri passi ad una scala;
e tosto ch'io al primo grado fui,
senti'mi presso quasi un muover d'ala
e ventarmi nel viso e dir: “Beati
pacifici, che son sanz' ira mala!”
Già eran sovra noi tanto levati
li ultimi raggi che la notte segue,
che le stelle apparivan da più lati.
“O virtù mia, perché sì ti dilegue?”
fra me stesso dicea, ché mi sentiva
la possa de le gambe posta in triegue.
Noi eravam dove più non saliva
la scala sù, ed eravamo affissi,
pur come nave ch'a la piaggia arriva.
E io attesi un poco, s'io udissi
alcuna cosa nel novo girone;
poi mi volsi al maestro mio, e dissi:
“Dolce mio padre, dì, quale offensione
si purga qui nel giro dove semo?
Se i piè si stanno, non stea tuo sermone.”
Ed elli a me: “L'amor del bene, scemo
del suo dover, quiritta si ristora;
qui si ribatte il mal tardato remo.
Ma perché più aperto intendi ancora,
volgi la mente a me, e prenderai
alcun buon frutto di nostra dimora.”
“Né creator né creatura mai,”
cominciò el, “figliuol, fu sanza amore,
o naturale o d'animo; e tu 'l sai.
Lo naturale è sempre sanza errore,
ma l'altro puote errar per malo obietto
o per troppo o per poco di vigore.
Mentre ch'elli è nel primo ben diretto,
e ne' secondi sé stesso misura,
esser non può cagion di mal diletto;
ma quando al mal si torce, o con più cura
o con men che non dee corre nel bene,
contra 'l fattore adovra sua fattura.
Quinci comprender puoi ch'esser convene
amor sementa in voi d'ogne virtute
e d'ogne operazion che merta pene.
Or, perché mai non può da la salute
amor del suo subietto volger viso,
da l'odio proprio son le cose tute;
e perché intender non si può diviso,
e per sé stante, alcuno esser dal primo,
da quello odiare ogne effetto è deciso.
Resta, se dividendo bene stimo,
che 'l mal che s'ama è del prossimo; ed esso
amor nasce in tre modi in vostro limo.
É chi, per esser suo vicin soppresso,
spera eccellenza, e sol per questo brama
ch'el sia di sua grandezza in basso messo;
è chi podere, grazia, onore e fama
teme di perder perch' altri sormonti,
onde s'attrista sì che 'l contrario ama;
ed è chi per ingiuria par ch'aonti,
sì che si fa de la vendetta ghiotto,
e tal convien che 'l male altrui impronti.
Questo triforme amor qua giù di sotto
si piange: or vo' che tu de l'altro intende,
che corre al ben con ordine corrotto.
Ciascun confusamente un bene apprende
nel qual si queti l'animo, e disira;
per che di giugner lui ciascun contende.
Se lento amore a lui veder vi tira
o a lui acquistar, questa cornice,
dopo giusto penter, ve ne martira.
Altro ben è che non fa l'uom felice;
non è felicità, non è la buona
essenza, d'ogne ben frutto e radice.
L'amor ch'ad esso troppo s'abbandona,
di sovr' a noi si piange per tre cerchi;
ma come tripartito si ragiona,
tacciolo, acciò che tu per te ne cerchi.”
Remember, Reader, if e'er in the Alps
A mist o'ertook thee, through which thou couldst see
Not otherwise than through its membrane mole,
How, when the vapours humid and condensed
Begin to dissipate themselves, the sphere
Of the sun feebly enters in among them,
And thy imagination will be swift
In coming to perceive how I re-saw
The sun at first, that was already setting.
Thus, to the faithful footsteps of my Master
Mating mine own, I issued from that cloud
To rays already dead on the low shores.
O thou, Imagination, that dost steal us
So from without sometimes, that man perceives not,
Although around may sound a thousand trumpets,
Who moveth thee, if sense impel thee not?
Moves thee a light, which in the heaven takes form,
By self, or by a will that downward guides it.
Of her impiety, who changed her form
Into the bird that most delights in singing,
In my imagining appeared the trace;
And hereupon my mind was so withdrawn
Within itself, that from without there came
Nothing that then might be received by it.
Then reigned within my lofty fantasy
One crucified, disdainful and ferocious
In countenance, and even thus was dying.
Around him were the great Ahasuerus,
Esther his wife, and the just Mordecai,
Who was in word and action so entire.
And even as this image burst asunder
Of its own self, in fashion of a bubble
In which the water it was made of fails,
There rose up in my vision a young maiden
Bitterly weeping, and she said: "O queen,
Why hast thou wished in anger to be naught?
Thou'st slain thyself, Lavinia not to lose;
Now hast thou lost me; I am she who mourns,
Mother, at thine ere at another's ruin."
As sleep is broken, when upon a sudden
New light strikes in upon the eyelids closed,
And broken quivers ere it dieth wholly,
So this imagining of mine fell down
As soon as the effulgence smote my face,
Greater by far than what is in our wont.
I turned me round to see where I might be,
When said a voice, "Here is the passage up;"
Which from all other purposes removed me,
And made my wish so full of eagerness
To look and see who was it that was speaking,
It never rests till meeting face to face;
But as before the sun, which quells the sight,
And in its own excess its figure veils,
Even so my power was insufficient here.
"This is a spirit divine, who in the way
Of going up directs us without asking,
And who with his own light himself conceals.
He does with us as man doth with himself;
For he who sees the need, and waits the asking,
Malignly leans already tow'rds denial.
Accord we now our feet to such inviting,
Let us make haste to mount ere it grow dark;
For then we could not till the day return."
Thus my Conductor said; and I and he
Together turned our footsteps to a stairway;
And I, as soon as the first step I reached,
Near me perceived a motion as of wings,
And fanning in the face, and saying, "'Beati
Pacifici,' who are without ill anger."
Already over us were so uplifted
The latest sunbeams, which the night pursues,
That upon many sides the stars appeared.
"O manhood mine, why dost thou vanish so?"
I said within myself; for I perceived
The vigour of my legs was put in truce.
We at the point were where no more ascends
The stairway upward, and were motionless,
Even as a ship, which at the shore arrives;
And I gave heed a little, if I might hear
Aught whatsoever in the circle new;
Then to my Master turned me round and said:
"Say, my sweet Father, what delinquency
Is purged here in the circle where we are?
Although our feet may pause, pause not thy speech."
And he to me: "The love of good, remiss
In what it should have done, is here restored;
Here plied again the ill-belated oar;
But still more openly to understand,
Turn unto me thy mind, and thou shalt gather
Some profitable fruit from our delay.
Neither Creator nor a creature ever,
Son," he began, "was destitute of love
Natural or spiritual; and thou knowest it.
The natural was ever without error;
But err the other may by evil object,
Or by too much, or by too little vigour.
While in the first it well directed is,
And in the second moderates itself,
It cannot be the cause of sinful pleasure;
But when to ill it turns, and, with more care
Or lesser than it ought, runs after good,
'Gainst the Creator works his own creation.
Hence thou mayst comprehend that love must be
The seed within yourselves of every virtue,
And every act that merits punishment.
Now inasmuch as never from the welfare
Of its own subject can love turn its sight,
From their own hatred all things are secure;
And since we cannot think of any being
Standing alone, nor from the First divided,
Of hating Him is all desire cut off.
Hence if, discriminating, I judge well,
The evil that one loves is of one's neighbour,
And this is born in three modes in your clay.
There are, who, by abasement of their neighbour,
Hope to excel, and therefore only long
That from his greatness he may be cast down;
There are, who power, grace, honour, and renown
Fear they may lose because another rises,
Thence are so sad that the reverse they love;
And there are those whom injury seems to chafe,
So that it makes them greedy for revenge,
And such must needs shape out another's harm.
This threefold love is wept for down below;
Now of the other will I have thee hear,
That runneth after good with measure faulty.
Each one confusedly a good conceives
Wherein the mind may rest, and longeth for it;
Therefore to overtake it each one strives.
If languid love to look on this attract you,
Or in attaining unto it, this cornice,
After just penitence, torments you for it.
There's other good that does not make man happy;
'Tis not felicity, 'tis not the good
Essence, of every good the fruit and root.
The love that yields itself too much to this
Above us is lamented in three circles;
But how tripartite it may be described,
I say not, that thou seek it for thyself."
This marks the first time that an address to the reader begins a canto, here just at the midpoint of the poem. (Two later cantos will, however, begin with such apostrophe: Paradiso II and XIII.) These opening lines are similetic in nature if not precisely so in form.
Dante is apparently countering certain contemporary views, which held that moles were completely sightless (see Brunetto Latini, Tresor I.197, cited by Scartazzini [comm. to verse 3]). Tozer (comm. to verse 3) cites Virgil, Georgics I.183: 'oculis capti... talpae' (sightless moles). Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 1-6), who says that he thought of this passage once, when he was caught in mountain mists between Florence and Bologna, understood that Dante meant that moles could see, if only weakly (debiliter), through the skin that covers their eyes. Supporting this view, Lombardi (comm. to vv. 1-6) suggests that Dante is in accord with Aristotle, Historia animalium I.9. (For the question of Dante's knowledge of Aristotle's work on natural history as it was shaped by the translations of Michael Scot and the commentaries of Avicenna and Albertus Magnus, see Cesare Vasoli's note to Convivio II.viii.10 [Milan: Ricciardi, 1988], p. 184.) For a modern view of what kind of sight in what kind of mole is at stake here, see Trucchi (comm. to this passage).
This entire section of the canto is dominated by words that often in Dante refer to a higher form of sight, in contrast with the darkness in which the scene begins. In the first forty-three verses we encounter ten occurrences of words for seeing as follows: forms of imagine (imagine, imaginativa, imaginar) at vv. 7, 13, 21, 31, 43; of vedere (vedessi, veder, vista, visïone) at vv. 2, 8, 27, 34; the word fantasia at verse 25. These three forms occur thirty-eight times in the poem; thus more than one-fourth of all occurrences of this group of words occupies less than 1/300 of the poem.
The poet returns briefly to the narrative mode in order to set the scene for what is about to follow: it is just after sunset at the shore of the mountain, with the sun's rays still striking the higher reaches of its slopes.
This passage gave birth, in the early commentators, to the repetition of a charming story. Dante, having found a book he had never seen before in Siena, read it just where he found it, in a street stall, so that he might fix it in his mind, and did so for more than three hours one afternoon. When someone later asked him whether he had been disturbed by the wedding festivities that had occurred during his reading, he expressed no awareness that any such things had occurred. This 'incident' derives from Boccaccio's Trattatello and is also reported by Benvenuto (comm. to this passage).
On these equivalent powers of the soul, the phantasia or imaginatio, see St. Thomas (ST I.lxxviii.4): 'the phantasy or imagination is like a treasure house of images received by the senses' (cited by Sally Mussetter, “Fantasy,” in Richard Lansing, ed., Dante Encyclopedia [New York: Garland, 2000]). Thus both 'imagination' and 'phantasy' have a far different meaning in the works of Dante than in anything written after the Romantic era, where the imagination, given its 'esemplastic power' in the unforgettable phrase of Coleridge, rather than merely receiving them, produces images. For discussions of the imaginative faculty see Murry Wright Bundy (The Theory of Imagination in Classical and Medieval Thought [Urbana: University of Illinois, 1927]); Harry Austryn Wolfson (“The Internal Sense in Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew Philosophic Texts,” Harvard Theological Review 28 [1935], pp. 69-133); and Ignazio Baldelli (“Visione, immaginazione e fantasia nella Vita nuova,” in I sogni nel Medioevo, ed. Tullio Gregory [Rome: Edizioni dell'Atene, 1985], pp. 1-10). See also Paul Arvisu Dumol, “Imagination,” in Richard Lansing, ed., Dante Encyclopedia (New York: Garland, 2000). On the supernatural character of the informing light for the visions that follow, with consideration of the key terms imagine, imaginativa, and fantasia, see Kenelm Foster (“The Human Spirit in Action: Purgatorio XVII,” Dante Studies 88 [1970]), pp. 21-23; and Teodolinda Barolini (The Undivine “Comedy”: Detheologizing Dante [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992]), pp. 152-55. And see Patrick Boyde (Perception and passion in Dante's “Comedy” [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993]), pp. 44-50, on 'apprehension' and its reliance on imaginatio/phantasia.
As the Anonimo Fiorentino (comm. to vv. 13-15) explains, what is experienced by the five senses is registered in the senso comune and then conserved, without its physical elements, in the imagination, which, in contrast to the senso comune, the recipient of sense impressions only so long as they are present, is able to preserve these impressions. To paraphrase Dante's ruminative question, he turns to the imaginative faculty within himself to ask, 'How do you so remove our attention from outer reality that we do not even notice the most intrusive events? And what informs you if not a sense impression? A light that takes form in Heaven either naturally (i.e., through the natural influence of the stars) or through the will of God.' It seems clear that the visions that follow, like those experienced by the protagonist two cantos earlier (see the note to Purg. XV.85-86), are sent to him (and to the penitents on this terrace – but not to Virgil [see the note to Purg. XV.130-132]) directly by God.
Is the division of the sin of violence in Inferno remembered here, with each of the three exemplary figures guilty of one of the sins of violence portrayed in Inferno: against others (Procne), against oneself (Amata), and against God (Haman)? For this possibility see notes to Inferno VII.109-114 and XII.16-21 (last paragraph), as well as Hollander (Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969]), pp. 310-11. Wrath is defined, later on in this canto (vv. 121-123), as involving the hardened will in a desire for revenge (vendetta). It is clear that the sort of anger repented on this terrace is not the same sin that we encountered in Inferno VII-VIII, where we saw those who had been overcome by intemperate anger. Here we observe the results of wrathful behavior formed with deliberation.
It seems clear both that Dante has once again been favored by God-sent ecstatic visions and that Virgil now knows better than to attempt to inject himself into the proceedings: he is utterly silent throughout the scene, although we may imagine that Dante is once again manifesting 'drunken' behavior to anyone who observes him (see Purg. XV.121-123).
For Dante's earlier advertence to Ovid's story of Philomel and Procne see Purgatorio IX.13-15 and note. There Philomel is dealt with as a sympathetic figure; here Procne, her sister, is made exemplary of the sin of Wrath for murdering her own son, Itys, in order to take vengeance upon Tereus for raping her sister. It may seem odd to today's readers, but Dante thinks of Procne as the nightingale, Philomel as the swallow. (See discussion in the note to Purg. IX.13-15.) This ecstatic vision (see Purg. XV.85-86) is sent into Dante's mind, we must assume, by God.
Once again the poet insists on the extraordinary and extrasensory nature of his visionary experience.
There can be little doubt: the notion of these visions as having 'rained down' into the image-receiving faculty of his soul cements the claim made for them. Here is part of Singleton's comment on this verse: 'The phantasy, or imaginativa, is “lofty” because of the experience of a vision coming from such a source. For this adjectival usage, cf. “la morta poesì,” Purg. I.7; “la scritta morta,” Inf. VIII.127; “alto ingegno,” Inf. II.7; and again “alta fantasia” in Par. XXXIII.142.' It should perhaps be noted that Singleton here probably only rightly contradicts his own previous gloss of 'alto ingegno' at Inferno II.7, which he then interpreted as meaning 'the poet's own genius.' See the note to Inferno II.7-9.
That the poet here uses the very phrase 'alta fantasia,' which will mark his final vision of the Trinity three lines from the end of the poem (Par. XXXIII.142), underlines the importance of this 'trial run' for his capacity as visionary protagonist (and eventually God-inspired poet).
Once again one must know the story in order to understand the meaning of the vision, which is presented elliptically, a technique Dante employs in all three examples in these lines (19-39). In none of these is the exemplary figure named. This passage is perhaps the most striking in this respect, since the three 'supporting players' are all named, while we must supply the name of Haman. Like Procne, Haman is enraged against another (Mordecai, for not bowing down to him, when he had been promoted to being Ahasuerus's prime minister: see Esther 3:5, where Haman is described as being 'full of wrath' [iratus est valde]); like Procne, he tries to take revenge by killing others, deciding to put to death all the Jews in the kingdom of Ahasuerus. At Esther's urging Ahasuerus rescinds the decree Haman had wrung from him, thus saving God's people, the Jews in their Persian exile, and has Haman put to death on the gallows (crux in the Vulgate at Esther 5:14, thus accounting for Dante's crucifisso at verse 26).
The 'bubble' in Dante's vision breaks as a bubble does when it rises above the water that contained it, only to give place to another, the final vision of this terrace.
Lavinia, anonymous at first but soon to name herself (verse 37), addresses her unnamed mother, Amata, the consort of Latinus, king of Latium, and reproaches her for her suicide. As Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 31-39) point out, Dante, in the spring of 1311, deals with this scene (Aen. XII.595-603) in his second epistle to Henry VII and refers correctly to the context of Amata's suicide (Epist. VII.24), i.e., she kills herself because she believes that her opposition to her daughter's marriage to Aeneas has resulted in a failed war and the death of Turnus (whom she wrongly assumes to have been killed when she sees the soldiers of Aeneas approaching the city without opposition). Following expressions of puzzlement with Dante's treatment of this Virgilian text by Porena (comm. to these lines), Bosco and Reggio too are puzzled that Dante here develops the situation differently, and suggest that perhaps Dante wants here to make Amata a more sympathetic character. But perhaps he had simpler plans.
In Aeneid VII.286-405 Virgil presents the results of Juno's anger at Latinus's promise of Lavinia in marriage to Aeneas (and not to Turnus, the suitor preferred by Amata, described in verse 345 as a woman on fire, stirred by angers [irae]). Juno's wrath in turn stirs the Fury Alecto, who comes to earth and puts a venomous snake in Amata's breast. Poisoned by its venom, Amata goes mad with angry grief and, in the guise of a Bacchante, takes Lavinia to the countryside in the attempt to stop the marriage. All of this insubordination will, of course, eventually fail. It is not clear that Dante is reading the text of Virgil's twelfth book any differently now than he was when he wrote his second letter to Henry (whether that was written before or after this passage). At whom must Amata be angry, from the point of view of Lavinia? Aeneas, because he will now have Lavinia in marriage. In the epistle, Florence, rejecting her rightful ruler, Henry, is compared to suicidal Amata. There is no reason for such not to be Dante's understanding here. It is perhaps coincidental that the description of Amata's suicide is preceded in Virgil by a simile comparing the losing Latians to bees whose hive has been penetrated by the farmer's emetic smoke; nonetheless, our scene is also preceded by the smoke of anger. Amata, in this respect similar to the two previous exemplary figures, kills someone else in order to harm the person whom she truly hates, Aeneas. That someone else is herself. Hers is the secret of the terrorist, dying to let her enemy know the depths of her envious hatred.
The 'death of yet another' with which the passage ends refers to Turnus in such a way as to indicate that Lavinia understood that her mother had incorrectly assumed that Turnus was already dead, just as she does in Virgil's poem.
The simile is not difficult or surprising. Just as a dreaming sleeper, awakened by a sunbeam, loses his hold on his dream in bits and pieces before it utterly disappears, so was Dante jarred from his visionary sleep by the sudden brightness of the Angel of Mercy. There may be a reference here to verses in the Aeneid (II.268-269), as was first suggested by Venturi (comm. to verse 42): 'It was the hour when for weary mortals their first rest begins and, by gift of the gods, deliciously twines round them' (Tempus erat, quo prima quies mortalibus aegris / incipit et dono divum gratissima serpit). Virgil's description of the beginning of sleep is, according to Venturi, reflected in Dante's description of its ending, both passages featuring forms of verbs for serpentine movements (serpit, guizza). On the other hand, most commentators suggest that Dante's guizzare (shudder, quiver, wriggle) is more likely to be used to indicate the dying movement made by a fish out of water. While Venturi's proposal is still seconded by a commentator or two, most currently do not refer to it. This angelic light outshines even that of the sun, explains Benvenuto (comm. to these verses) 'because an angel gives off light more splendid than any light found in the world.'
This simile should be remembered in the reading of the final simile of awakening in the poem (Par. XXXIII.58-63). Dante's fascination with the state between dream and waking is a notable part of his program of investigating the mental state of humans (see the note to Inf. XXX.136-141).
As Singleton notes, in this verse we have again an insistence on paying attention to a single thing (here the angel's permissive command), to the exclusion of all others.
Perhaps a paraphrase of Virgil's remarks will be helpful: 'This divine spirit does what we wish without our asking, hiding itself in its own radiance (and thus allowing us to see); and it deals with us as we deal with ourselves, for he who sees a need, and yet waits to be asked, unkindly predisposes himself toward denying the request.' As Daniello (comm. to vv. 52-60) noted, this is a restatement of a Senecan motto (De beneficiis II.i.3), concerning the grace of giving before one is asked, one that Dante had already made his own in Convivio I.viii.16.
For the 'rule' (apparently more consented to than insisted on) that governs nocturnal stasis on the mountain see Sordello's explanation (Purg. VII.53-60).
The Angel of Mercy draws upon the Beatitude found in Matthew 5:9, 'Blessed are the peacemakers,' yet does so in such a way as to indicate tacitly the distinction between 'good' anger (righteous indignation) and the 'bad' form of wrath (ira mala) that is fueled by desire for personal revenge.
The sun having set, its rays touch only the higher reaches of the mountain. It is after 6pm and the first stars are visible.
The protagonist's inner apostrophe of his flagging power of locomotion shows his awareness of the special kind of nocturnal debility afflicting souls on this mountain. As we will see, his physical condition matches that of a man who is slothful.
Since, on the terrace of Wrath, Dante's learning experiences occurred in darkness, and since it is dark as he enters the fourth terrace, he assumes that he may be instructed in virtue by what he will hear.
Just as the poem is now entering its second half and this cantica arriving at its midpoint, so the experience of the repentance of the seven capital vices has come to its central moment with Sloth. From Dante's question and Virgil's answer we also understand that there is a gulf separating the vices below, all of which begin in the love of what is wrongful, from the rest, all of which result from insufficient or improper desire to attain the good. The sin purged here is called acedia in Latin and accidia in Italian. (For a lengthy consideration see Siegfried Wenzel's book [The Sin of Sloth: “Acedia” in Medieval Thought and Literature (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1967)]; see also Andrea Ciotti's entry, which sometimes takes issue with Wenzel, “accidia e accidiosi” (ED.1970.1); for a wider view of acedia see Reinhard Kuhn [The Demon of Noontide: Ennui in Western Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976)], with special reference to Dante on pp. 56-59). In the poem, the word will appear in the next canto, used retrospectively to indicate the sin repented here (Purg. XVIII.132); however, in adjectival form it was present earlier (Inf. VII.123 – see the note to Inf. VII.118-126). Scartazzini (comm. to vv. 85-86) brings St. Thomas (ST I.lxiii.2) into play as the one who affords a clear understanding of this sin, a kind of spiritual torpor accompanied by (or even causing) physical weariness: 'Acedia vero est quaedam tristitia qua homo redditur tardus ad spirituales actus propter corporalem laborem.'
This second extended 'diagram' is excused, as was the first (Inferno XI), by the need to linger awhile before continuing the journey. Compare verse 84 and Inferno XI.10-15.
The rest of the canto is given over, without interruption, to Virgil's discourse on the nature of love. It misses only by a little being the longest speech we have heard spoken in the poem since Ugolino's in Inferno XXXIII.4-75, beaten out by Sordello's recounting of the current denizens of the Valley of the Princes (Purg. VII.87-136) and of course by Marco the Lombard's discourse on the related failures of Church and empire (Purg. XVI.65-129).
The given of Virgil's whole speech is the universality of love. It proceeds from God in all His creation, and from all things that He has created. In the rational beings (angels and humans), it returns to Him; in the lower animals, to one another and to their habitat; in insentient bodies, to their habitat (e.g., water lilies on ponds) or place of origin (e.g., fire always wanting to reach the sky beneath the moon). See Convivio III.iii.2-5, cited by Singleton (comm. to these lines).
Love is of two kinds, natural or 'mental.' Natural love always desires the utmost good, and for rational beings that is God. Thus all humans naturally desire the good. If that were the only love that motivated us, there would be no sin in the world. However, there is another kind of love, one reached by a mental effort, and thus found only in angels and humans. (Since angels have all made their will known, to love God eternally, only humans will be the subjects of Virgil's discourse.) Human beings, using their free wills, may fall into three kinds of sin; choosing the wrong object for their loves (sins repented on the first three terraces); loving the good deficiently (as do the slothful, whom we are about to encounter); loving the good excessively (the sins repented on the three highest terraces, Avarice, Gluttony, Lust). For discussion of the way in which Dante, unlike Andreas Capellanus and Guido Cavalcanti, is only interested in affirming spiritual love, see Pasquazi (“Il Canto XVII del Purgatorio,” in Nuove letture dantesche, vol. IV [Florence: Le Monnier, 1970]), pp. 227-31.
The lines essentially repeat what has been established in vv. 91-96, as though Dante sensed the difficulty most readers would be likely to have with this conceptual poetry.
The argument pauses for its first affirmation: whether we sin or use our (free) wills well, the results observed come from our ways of loving – and our merit or demerit accords with the nature of our loves.
The first consequence of this doctrine is to remove two possible motivations from consideration: hatred of self or hatred of God, both of which are declared to be impossible. Singleton (comm. to vv. 109-111) points out that sinners like Capaneus (Inf. XIV) and Vanni Fucci (Inf XXV) indeed do demonstrate a hatred for God, a feeling possible only in hell, but not in this life on earth. The sins of suicide and blasphemy, however, surely seem to contradict this theoretical notion.
Hatred of self or of God having been discarded as motivations for immoral human conduct, hatred of our neighbor remains, expressed in (1) prideful desire that his success be reversed so that we may be his superior, (2) in envious desire that his success be thwarted, (3) in wrathful desire to take revenge for the harm he has inflicted on us. We realize – although we are told it in case we might not – that these are the sins of Pride, Envy, and Wrath that we have just finished visiting.
The actual midpoint of the poem lies between these two verses, numbers 7116 and 7117 of the poem's 14,233. See discussion in the note to Purgatorio XVIII.133-139.
These two verses refer to all of the other four sins as a group united in at least seeking the good (as was not the case for the first three), but imperfectly.
Virgil now defines Sloth, the first of these two better kinds of sin, as 'laggard love.' Thus, by failing to respond to God's offered love more energetically, the slothful are more rebellious to Him than are the avaricious, gluttonous, and lustful, who are pursuing a secondary good rather than avoiding the primary one. In Dante's day, Sloth was a sin particularly identified with the clergy, with reference not so much to their physical laziness as to their spiritually laggard lives. See Reinhard Kuhn (The Demon of Noontide: Ennui in Western Literature [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976]), pp. 39-64.
This secondary good has been referred to earlier at Purgatorio XVII.98 and will occupy Cantos XX through XXVII, broken into three categories: money, food, and sex.
'The Poet's Number at the Center': Singleton (“The Poet's Number at the Center,” Modern Language Notes 80 [1965], pp. 1-10), noted a chiastic pattern at the heart of the Commedia, indeed at its very numerical center (or near it: since there are fifty cantos that precede Purg. XVII and it is the first of the final fifty; the white space between the sixteenth and seventeenth cantos is the center – at least if we count by cantos). The line lengths of Cantos XIV-XX produce the following apparently deliberate chiasmus:
151 151
145 145 145 145
139
Singleton's conclusion, based on the view that seven is the 'poet's number,' is that Dante has deliberately set a seven-based chiastic pattern at the very center of his poem, and goes on to enjoy the coincidence that his discovery only occurred in 1965, the year marking the seven-hundredth anniversary of Dante's birth. Attacking this finding, Richard J. Pegis (“Numerology and Probability in Dante,” Mediaeval Studies 29 [1967], pp. 370-73) suggests that the pattern is the result of coincidence and produces a second and entirely similar figure found at Purgatorio III-IX:
151
148 148
139 139
136 136
It is Pegis's view that this earlier example of chiasmus (later also observed by Eugenio Ragni [Canto VI,“ in Lectura Dantis Neapolitana: ”Purgatorio,“ ed. Pompeo Giannantonio (Naples: Loffredo, 1989)], p. 116) only makes the likelihood that the one observed by Singleton was aleatory more certain. To Singleton's defense came Logan (”The Poet's Central Numbers,“ Modern Language Notes 86 [1971], pp. 95-98), who not only believes that both patterns are deliberate, but goes on to develop the thesis that there are two parallel cases of still more developed chiasmus at the center of each of the final two cantiche, now calculating the 'number' of each canto as derived from the sum of the lines that make up each canto's length, as follows:
Purgatorio Paradiso
canto lines sum lines sum
XI 142 7 139 13
XII 136 10 145 10
XIII 154 10 142 7
XIV 151 7 139 13
XV 145 10 148 13
XVI 145 10 154 10
XVII 139 13 142 7
XVIII 145 10 136 10
XIX 145 10 148 13
XX 151 7 148 13
XXI 136 10 142 7
XXII 154 10 154 10
XXIII 133 7 139 13
If one tries to establish a control for these findings, one may note that Dante's canto lengths run between 115 and 160 lines. No cantos contain 118, 121, or 127 verses, as is clear from the helpful charts found in Ferrante (”A Poetics of Chaos and Harmony,“ in The Cambridge Companion to Dante, ed. R. Jacoff [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993]), pp. 154-55. The thirteen line lengths that Dante does employ (115, 124, 130, 133, 136, 139, 142, 145, 148, 151, 154, 157, 160) all add up to 7, 10, or 13 except for 130, which equals 4 (1 plus 3 plus 0). But only once after Inferno XX does he produce a canto of 130 lines (Par. III). Thus Logan's claims for an intentional design are possibly compromised by the fact that all the canto lengths in these sections of the two final cantiche necessarily convert to the sums 7, 10, or 13. This lessens the likelihood that these third and fourth examples of chiasmus are deliberate. It is of course possible that Logan is simply right; it is difficult to be certain about such things. Now see the study by Federico Turelli (”Il ruolo della casualità nelle ripetizioni di rima della Commedia,“ Letteratura italiana antica 3 [2002], pp. 507-23), reviewing the problem and arguing that both of the seven-fold symmetrical sequences found in the Purgatorio (III-IX, XIV-XX) are the result of deliberate plan and do have structural significance. And see Colette de Callata,y-van der Mersch (Le Déchiffrement de Dante, 3 vols. [Peeters: Louvain, 1994-97]), vol. I, pp. 24-26, also seeking to unriddle the design in the lengths of Dante's cantos. Her argument is immediately compromised when she claims that the thirteen canto lengths represent a choice from among forty-five possibilities (cantos of from 115 to 160 verses [and thus actually 46]), when in fact, because of terza rima, Dante had only sixteen available choices within that range. That sort of carelessness is close to fatal to a numerological argument that requires every element in it to be convincing. See also her accountancy (p. 79), invoking a system built on sevens, that somehow represents the cantos devoted to the earthly paradise as being seven, while they are indeed six (XXVIII to XXXIII).
For still another derivation of a pattern from Singleton's finding see Riccardo Ambrosini (”Sul messianismo di Dante: A proposito del canto XVII del Paradiso,“ L'Alighieri 18 [2001]), p. 86, suggesting that it is significant that each successive 'central' canto, numbered XVII, contains three more verses than its precursor, 136, 139, and 142. Ambrosini points out that no other set of three cantos reveals such a progression. Nonetheless, one feels compelled to ask whether or not this 'pattern' might simply be the result of chance.
For a brief consideration of the increasing length, as the poem proceeds, of Dante's cantos see the note to Inferno VI.28-32.
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Ricorditi, lettor, se mai ne l'alpe
ti colse nebbia per la qual vedessi
non altrimenti che per pelle talpe,
come, quando i vapori umidi e spessi
a diradar cominciansi, la spera
del sol debilemente entra per essi;
e fia la tua imagine leggera
in giugnere a veder com' io rividi
lo sole in pria, che già nel corcar era.
Sì, pareggiando i miei co' passi fidi
del mio maestro, usci' fuor di tal nube
ai raggi morti già ne' bassi lidi.
O imaginativa che ne rube
talvolta sì di fuor, ch'om non s'accorge
perché dintorno suonin mille tube,
chi move te, se 'l senso non ti porge?
Moveti lume che nel ciel s'informa,
per sé o per voler che giù lo scorge.
De l'empiezza di lei che mutò forma
ne l'uccel ch'a cantar più si diletta,
ne l'imagine mia apparve l'orma;
e qui fu la mia mente sì ristretta
dentro da sé, che di fuor non venìa
cosa che fosse allor da lei ricetta.
Poi piovve dentro a l'alta fantasia
un crucifisso, dispettoso e fero
ne la sua vista, e cotal si moria;
intorno ad esso era il grande Assüero,
Estèr sua sposa e 'l giusto Mardoceo,
che fu al dire e al far così intero.
E come questa imagine rompeo
sé per sé stessa, a guisa d'una bulla
cui manca l'acqua sotto qual si feo,
surse in mia visione una fanciulla
piangendo forte, e dicea: “O regina,
perché per ira hai voluto esser nulla?
Ancisa t'hai per non perder Lavina;
or m'hai perduta! Io son essa che lutto,
madre, a la tua pria ch'a l'altrui ruina.”
Come si frange il sonno ove di butto
nova luce percuote il viso chiuso,
che fratto guizza pria che muoia tutto;
così l'imaginar mio cadde giuso
tosto che lume il volto mi percosse,
maggior assai che quel ch'è in nostro uso.
I' mi volgea per veder ov' io fosse,
quando una voce disse “Qui si monta,”
che da ogne altro intento mi rimosse;
e fece la mia voglia tanto pronta
di riguardar chi era che parlava,
che mai non posa, se non si raffronta.
Ma come al sol che nostra vista grava
e per soverchio sua figura vela,
così la mia virtù quivi mancava.
“Questo è divino spirito, che ne la
via da ir sù ne drizza sanza prego,
e col suo lume sé medesmo cela.
Sì fa con noi, come l'uom si fa sego;
ché quale aspetta prego e l'uopo vede,
malignamente già si mette al nego.
Or accordiamo a tanto invito il piede;
procacciam di salir pria che s'abbui,
ché poi non si poria, se 'l dì non riede.”
Così disse il mio duca, e io con lui
volgemmo i nostri passi ad una scala;
e tosto ch'io al primo grado fui,
senti'mi presso quasi un muover d'ala
e ventarmi nel viso e dir: “Beati
pacifici, che son sanz' ira mala!”
Già eran sovra noi tanto levati
li ultimi raggi che la notte segue,
che le stelle apparivan da più lati.
“O virtù mia, perché sì ti dilegue?”
fra me stesso dicea, ché mi sentiva
la possa de le gambe posta in triegue.
Noi eravam dove più non saliva
la scala sù, ed eravamo affissi,
pur come nave ch'a la piaggia arriva.
E io attesi un poco, s'io udissi
alcuna cosa nel novo girone;
poi mi volsi al maestro mio, e dissi:
“Dolce mio padre, dì, quale offensione
si purga qui nel giro dove semo?
Se i piè si stanno, non stea tuo sermone.”
Ed elli a me: “L'amor del bene, scemo
del suo dover, quiritta si ristora;
qui si ribatte il mal tardato remo.
Ma perché più aperto intendi ancora,
volgi la mente a me, e prenderai
alcun buon frutto di nostra dimora.”
“Né creator né creatura mai,”
cominciò el, “figliuol, fu sanza amore,
o naturale o d'animo; e tu 'l sai.
Lo naturale è sempre sanza errore,
ma l'altro puote errar per malo obietto
o per troppo o per poco di vigore.
Mentre ch'elli è nel primo ben diretto,
e ne' secondi sé stesso misura,
esser non può cagion di mal diletto;
ma quando al mal si torce, o con più cura
o con men che non dee corre nel bene,
contra 'l fattore adovra sua fattura.
Quinci comprender puoi ch'esser convene
amor sementa in voi d'ogne virtute
e d'ogne operazion che merta pene.
Or, perché mai non può da la salute
amor del suo subietto volger viso,
da l'odio proprio son le cose tute;
e perché intender non si può diviso,
e per sé stante, alcuno esser dal primo,
da quello odiare ogne effetto è deciso.
Resta, se dividendo bene stimo,
che 'l mal che s'ama è del prossimo; ed esso
amor nasce in tre modi in vostro limo.
É chi, per esser suo vicin soppresso,
spera eccellenza, e sol per questo brama
ch'el sia di sua grandezza in basso messo;
è chi podere, grazia, onore e fama
teme di perder perch' altri sormonti,
onde s'attrista sì che 'l contrario ama;
ed è chi per ingiuria par ch'aonti,
sì che si fa de la vendetta ghiotto,
e tal convien che 'l male altrui impronti.
Questo triforme amor qua giù di sotto
si piange: or vo' che tu de l'altro intende,
che corre al ben con ordine corrotto.
Ciascun confusamente un bene apprende
nel qual si queti l'animo, e disira;
per che di giugner lui ciascun contende.
Se lento amore a lui veder vi tira
o a lui acquistar, questa cornice,
dopo giusto penter, ve ne martira.
Altro ben è che non fa l'uom felice;
non è felicità, non è la buona
essenza, d'ogne ben frutto e radice.
L'amor ch'ad esso troppo s'abbandona,
di sovr' a noi si piange per tre cerchi;
ma come tripartito si ragiona,
tacciolo, acciò che tu per te ne cerchi.”
Remember, Reader, if e'er in the Alps
A mist o'ertook thee, through which thou couldst see
Not otherwise than through its membrane mole,
How, when the vapours humid and condensed
Begin to dissipate themselves, the sphere
Of the sun feebly enters in among them,
And thy imagination will be swift
In coming to perceive how I re-saw
The sun at first, that was already setting.
Thus, to the faithful footsteps of my Master
Mating mine own, I issued from that cloud
To rays already dead on the low shores.
O thou, Imagination, that dost steal us
So from without sometimes, that man perceives not,
Although around may sound a thousand trumpets,
Who moveth thee, if sense impel thee not?
Moves thee a light, which in the heaven takes form,
By self, or by a will that downward guides it.
Of her impiety, who changed her form
Into the bird that most delights in singing,
In my imagining appeared the trace;
And hereupon my mind was so withdrawn
Within itself, that from without there came
Nothing that then might be received by it.
Then reigned within my lofty fantasy
One crucified, disdainful and ferocious
In countenance, and even thus was dying.
Around him were the great Ahasuerus,
Esther his wife, and the just Mordecai,
Who was in word and action so entire.
And even as this image burst asunder
Of its own self, in fashion of a bubble
In which the water it was made of fails,
There rose up in my vision a young maiden
Bitterly weeping, and she said: "O queen,
Why hast thou wished in anger to be naught?
Thou'st slain thyself, Lavinia not to lose;
Now hast thou lost me; I am she who mourns,
Mother, at thine ere at another's ruin."
As sleep is broken, when upon a sudden
New light strikes in upon the eyelids closed,
And broken quivers ere it dieth wholly,
So this imagining of mine fell down
As soon as the effulgence smote my face,
Greater by far than what is in our wont.
I turned me round to see where I might be,
When said a voice, "Here is the passage up;"
Which from all other purposes removed me,
And made my wish so full of eagerness
To look and see who was it that was speaking,
It never rests till meeting face to face;
But as before the sun, which quells the sight,
And in its own excess its figure veils,
Even so my power was insufficient here.
"This is a spirit divine, who in the way
Of going up directs us without asking,
And who with his own light himself conceals.
He does with us as man doth with himself;
For he who sees the need, and waits the asking,
Malignly leans already tow'rds denial.
Accord we now our feet to such inviting,
Let us make haste to mount ere it grow dark;
For then we could not till the day return."
Thus my Conductor said; and I and he
Together turned our footsteps to a stairway;
And I, as soon as the first step I reached,
Near me perceived a motion as of wings,
And fanning in the face, and saying, "'Beati
Pacifici,' who are without ill anger."
Already over us were so uplifted
The latest sunbeams, which the night pursues,
That upon many sides the stars appeared.
"O manhood mine, why dost thou vanish so?"
I said within myself; for I perceived
The vigour of my legs was put in truce.
We at the point were where no more ascends
The stairway upward, and were motionless,
Even as a ship, which at the shore arrives;
And I gave heed a little, if I might hear
Aught whatsoever in the circle new;
Then to my Master turned me round and said:
"Say, my sweet Father, what delinquency
Is purged here in the circle where we are?
Although our feet may pause, pause not thy speech."
And he to me: "The love of good, remiss
In what it should have done, is here restored;
Here plied again the ill-belated oar;
But still more openly to understand,
Turn unto me thy mind, and thou shalt gather
Some profitable fruit from our delay.
Neither Creator nor a creature ever,
Son," he began, "was destitute of love
Natural or spiritual; and thou knowest it.
The natural was ever without error;
But err the other may by evil object,
Or by too much, or by too little vigour.
While in the first it well directed is,
And in the second moderates itself,
It cannot be the cause of sinful pleasure;
But when to ill it turns, and, with more care
Or lesser than it ought, runs after good,
'Gainst the Creator works his own creation.
Hence thou mayst comprehend that love must be
The seed within yourselves of every virtue,
And every act that merits punishment.
Now inasmuch as never from the welfare
Of its own subject can love turn its sight,
From their own hatred all things are secure;
And since we cannot think of any being
Standing alone, nor from the First divided,
Of hating Him is all desire cut off.
Hence if, discriminating, I judge well,
The evil that one loves is of one's neighbour,
And this is born in three modes in your clay.
There are, who, by abasement of their neighbour,
Hope to excel, and therefore only long
That from his greatness he may be cast down;
There are, who power, grace, honour, and renown
Fear they may lose because another rises,
Thence are so sad that the reverse they love;
And there are those whom injury seems to chafe,
So that it makes them greedy for revenge,
And such must needs shape out another's harm.
This threefold love is wept for down below;
Now of the other will I have thee hear,
That runneth after good with measure faulty.
Each one confusedly a good conceives
Wherein the mind may rest, and longeth for it;
Therefore to overtake it each one strives.
If languid love to look on this attract you,
Or in attaining unto it, this cornice,
After just penitence, torments you for it.
There's other good that does not make man happy;
'Tis not felicity, 'tis not the good
Essence, of every good the fruit and root.
The love that yields itself too much to this
Above us is lamented in three circles;
But how tripartite it may be described,
I say not, that thou seek it for thyself."
This marks the first time that an address to the reader begins a canto, here just at the midpoint of the poem. (Two later cantos will, however, begin with such apostrophe: Paradiso II and XIII.) These opening lines are similetic in nature if not precisely so in form.
Dante is apparently countering certain contemporary views, which held that moles were completely sightless (see Brunetto Latini, Tresor I.197, cited by Scartazzini [comm. to verse 3]). Tozer (comm. to verse 3) cites Virgil, Georgics I.183: 'oculis capti... talpae' (sightless moles). Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 1-6), who says that he thought of this passage once, when he was caught in mountain mists between Florence and Bologna, understood that Dante meant that moles could see, if only weakly (debiliter), through the skin that covers their eyes. Supporting this view, Lombardi (comm. to vv. 1-6) suggests that Dante is in accord with Aristotle, Historia animalium I.9. (For the question of Dante's knowledge of Aristotle's work on natural history as it was shaped by the translations of Michael Scot and the commentaries of Avicenna and Albertus Magnus, see Cesare Vasoli's note to Convivio II.viii.10 [Milan: Ricciardi, 1988], p. 184.) For a modern view of what kind of sight in what kind of mole is at stake here, see Trucchi (comm. to this passage).
This entire section of the canto is dominated by words that often in Dante refer to a higher form of sight, in contrast with the darkness in which the scene begins. In the first forty-three verses we encounter ten occurrences of words for seeing as follows: forms of imagine (imagine, imaginativa, imaginar) at vv. 7, 13, 21, 31, 43; of vedere (vedessi, veder, vista, visïone) at vv. 2, 8, 27, 34; the word fantasia at verse 25. These three forms occur thirty-eight times in the poem; thus more than one-fourth of all occurrences of this group of words occupies less than 1/300 of the poem.
The poet returns briefly to the narrative mode in order to set the scene for what is about to follow: it is just after sunset at the shore of the mountain, with the sun's rays still striking the higher reaches of its slopes.
This passage gave birth, in the early commentators, to the repetition of a charming story. Dante, having found a book he had never seen before in Siena, read it just where he found it, in a street stall, so that he might fix it in his mind, and did so for more than three hours one afternoon. When someone later asked him whether he had been disturbed by the wedding festivities that had occurred during his reading, he expressed no awareness that any such things had occurred. This 'incident' derives from Boccaccio's Trattatello and is also reported by Benvenuto (comm. to this passage).
On these equivalent powers of the soul, the phantasia or imaginatio, see St. Thomas (ST I.lxxviii.4): 'the phantasy or imagination is like a treasure house of images received by the senses' (cited by Sally Mussetter, “Fantasy,” in Richard Lansing, ed., Dante Encyclopedia [New York: Garland, 2000]). Thus both 'imagination' and 'phantasy' have a far different meaning in the works of Dante than in anything written after the Romantic era, where the imagination, given its 'esemplastic power' in the unforgettable phrase of Coleridge, rather than merely receiving them, produces images. For discussions of the imaginative faculty see Murry Wright Bundy (The Theory of Imagination in Classical and Medieval Thought [Urbana: University of Illinois, 1927]); Harry Austryn Wolfson (“The Internal Sense in Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew Philosophic Texts,” Harvard Theological Review 28 [1935], pp. 69-133); and Ignazio Baldelli (“Visione, immaginazione e fantasia nella Vita nuova,” in I sogni nel Medioevo, ed. Tullio Gregory [Rome: Edizioni dell'Atene, 1985], pp. 1-10). See also Paul Arvisu Dumol, “Imagination,” in Richard Lansing, ed., Dante Encyclopedia (New York: Garland, 2000). On the supernatural character of the informing light for the visions that follow, with consideration of the key terms imagine, imaginativa, and fantasia, see Kenelm Foster (“The Human Spirit in Action: Purgatorio XVII,” Dante Studies 88 [1970]), pp. 21-23; and Teodolinda Barolini (The Undivine “Comedy”: Detheologizing Dante [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992]), pp. 152-55. And see Patrick Boyde (Perception and passion in Dante's “Comedy” [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993]), pp. 44-50, on 'apprehension' and its reliance on imaginatio/phantasia.
As the Anonimo Fiorentino (comm. to vv. 13-15) explains, what is experienced by the five senses is registered in the senso comune and then conserved, without its physical elements, in the imagination, which, in contrast to the senso comune, the recipient of sense impressions only so long as they are present, is able to preserve these impressions. To paraphrase Dante's ruminative question, he turns to the imaginative faculty within himself to ask, 'How do you so remove our attention from outer reality that we do not even notice the most intrusive events? And what informs you if not a sense impression? A light that takes form in Heaven either naturally (i.e., through the natural influence of the stars) or through the will of God.' It seems clear that the visions that follow, like those experienced by the protagonist two cantos earlier (see the note to Purg. XV.85-86), are sent to him (and to the penitents on this terrace – but not to Virgil [see the note to Purg. XV.130-132]) directly by God.
Is the division of the sin of violence in Inferno remembered here, with each of the three exemplary figures guilty of one of the sins of violence portrayed in Inferno: against others (Procne), against oneself (Amata), and against God (Haman)? For this possibility see notes to Inferno VII.109-114 and XII.16-21 (last paragraph), as well as Hollander (Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969]), pp. 310-11. Wrath is defined, later on in this canto (vv. 121-123), as involving the hardened will in a desire for revenge (vendetta). It is clear that the sort of anger repented on this terrace is not the same sin that we encountered in Inferno VII-VIII, where we saw those who had been overcome by intemperate anger. Here we observe the results of wrathful behavior formed with deliberation.
It seems clear both that Dante has once again been favored by God-sent ecstatic visions and that Virgil now knows better than to attempt to inject himself into the proceedings: he is utterly silent throughout the scene, although we may imagine that Dante is once again manifesting 'drunken' behavior to anyone who observes him (see Purg. XV.121-123).
For Dante's earlier advertence to Ovid's story of Philomel and Procne see Purgatorio IX.13-15 and note. There Philomel is dealt with as a sympathetic figure; here Procne, her sister, is made exemplary of the sin of Wrath for murdering her own son, Itys, in order to take vengeance upon Tereus for raping her sister. It may seem odd to today's readers, but Dante thinks of Procne as the nightingale, Philomel as the swallow. (See discussion in the note to Purg. IX.13-15.) This ecstatic vision (see Purg. XV.85-86) is sent into Dante's mind, we must assume, by God.
Once again the poet insists on the extraordinary and extrasensory nature of his visionary experience.
There can be little doubt: the notion of these visions as having 'rained down' into the image-receiving faculty of his soul cements the claim made for them. Here is part of Singleton's comment on this verse: 'The phantasy, or imaginativa, is “lofty” because of the experience of a vision coming from such a source. For this adjectival usage, cf. “la morta poesì,” Purg. I.7; “la scritta morta,” Inf. VIII.127; “alto ingegno,” Inf. II.7; and again “alta fantasia” in Par. XXXIII.142.' It should perhaps be noted that Singleton here probably only rightly contradicts his own previous gloss of 'alto ingegno' at Inferno II.7, which he then interpreted as meaning 'the poet's own genius.' See the note to Inferno II.7-9.
That the poet here uses the very phrase 'alta fantasia,' which will mark his final vision of the Trinity three lines from the end of the poem (Par. XXXIII.142), underlines the importance of this 'trial run' for his capacity as visionary protagonist (and eventually God-inspired poet).
Once again one must know the story in order to understand the meaning of the vision, which is presented elliptically, a technique Dante employs in all three examples in these lines (19-39). In none of these is the exemplary figure named. This passage is perhaps the most striking in this respect, since the three 'supporting players' are all named, while we must supply the name of Haman. Like Procne, Haman is enraged against another (Mordecai, for not bowing down to him, when he had been promoted to being Ahasuerus's prime minister: see Esther 3:5, where Haman is described as being 'full of wrath' [iratus est valde]); like Procne, he tries to take revenge by killing others, deciding to put to death all the Jews in the kingdom of Ahasuerus. At Esther's urging Ahasuerus rescinds the decree Haman had wrung from him, thus saving God's people, the Jews in their Persian exile, and has Haman put to death on the gallows (crux in the Vulgate at Esther 5:14, thus accounting for Dante's crucifisso at verse 26).
The 'bubble' in Dante's vision breaks as a bubble does when it rises above the water that contained it, only to give place to another, the final vision of this terrace.
Lavinia, anonymous at first but soon to name herself (verse 37), addresses her unnamed mother, Amata, the consort of Latinus, king of Latium, and reproaches her for her suicide. As Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 31-39) point out, Dante, in the spring of 1311, deals with this scene (Aen. XII.595-603) in his second epistle to Henry VII and refers correctly to the context of Amata's suicide (Epist. VII.24), i.e., she kills herself because she believes that her opposition to her daughter's marriage to Aeneas has resulted in a failed war and the death of Turnus (whom she wrongly assumes to have been killed when she sees the soldiers of Aeneas approaching the city without opposition). Following expressions of puzzlement with Dante's treatment of this Virgilian text by Porena (comm. to these lines), Bosco and Reggio too are puzzled that Dante here develops the situation differently, and suggest that perhaps Dante wants here to make Amata a more sympathetic character. But perhaps he had simpler plans.
In Aeneid VII.286-405 Virgil presents the results of Juno's anger at Latinus's promise of Lavinia in marriage to Aeneas (and not to Turnus, the suitor preferred by Amata, described in verse 345 as a woman on fire, stirred by angers [irae]). Juno's wrath in turn stirs the Fury Alecto, who comes to earth and puts a venomous snake in Amata's breast. Poisoned by its venom, Amata goes mad with angry grief and, in the guise of a Bacchante, takes Lavinia to the countryside in the attempt to stop the marriage. All of this insubordination will, of course, eventually fail. It is not clear that Dante is reading the text of Virgil's twelfth book any differently now than he was when he wrote his second letter to Henry (whether that was written before or after this passage). At whom must Amata be angry, from the point of view of Lavinia? Aeneas, because he will now have Lavinia in marriage. In the epistle, Florence, rejecting her rightful ruler, Henry, is compared to suicidal Amata. There is no reason for such not to be Dante's understanding here. It is perhaps coincidental that the description of Amata's suicide is preceded in Virgil by a simile comparing the losing Latians to bees whose hive has been penetrated by the farmer's emetic smoke; nonetheless, our scene is also preceded by the smoke of anger. Amata, in this respect similar to the two previous exemplary figures, kills someone else in order to harm the person whom she truly hates, Aeneas. That someone else is herself. Hers is the secret of the terrorist, dying to let her enemy know the depths of her envious hatred.
The 'death of yet another' with which the passage ends refers to Turnus in such a way as to indicate that Lavinia understood that her mother had incorrectly assumed that Turnus was already dead, just as she does in Virgil's poem.
The simile is not difficult or surprising. Just as a dreaming sleeper, awakened by a sunbeam, loses his hold on his dream in bits and pieces before it utterly disappears, so was Dante jarred from his visionary sleep by the sudden brightness of the Angel of Mercy. There may be a reference here to verses in the Aeneid (II.268-269), as was first suggested by Venturi (comm. to verse 42): 'It was the hour when for weary mortals their first rest begins and, by gift of the gods, deliciously twines round them' (Tempus erat, quo prima quies mortalibus aegris / incipit et dono divum gratissima serpit). Virgil's description of the beginning of sleep is, according to Venturi, reflected in Dante's description of its ending, both passages featuring forms of verbs for serpentine movements (serpit, guizza). On the other hand, most commentators suggest that Dante's guizzare (shudder, quiver, wriggle) is more likely to be used to indicate the dying movement made by a fish out of water. While Venturi's proposal is still seconded by a commentator or two, most currently do not refer to it. This angelic light outshines even that of the sun, explains Benvenuto (comm. to these verses) 'because an angel gives off light more splendid than any light found in the world.'
This simile should be remembered in the reading of the final simile of awakening in the poem (Par. XXXIII.58-63). Dante's fascination with the state between dream and waking is a notable part of his program of investigating the mental state of humans (see the note to Inf. XXX.136-141).
As Singleton notes, in this verse we have again an insistence on paying attention to a single thing (here the angel's permissive command), to the exclusion of all others.
Perhaps a paraphrase of Virgil's remarks will be helpful: 'This divine spirit does what we wish without our asking, hiding itself in its own radiance (and thus allowing us to see); and it deals with us as we deal with ourselves, for he who sees a need, and yet waits to be asked, unkindly predisposes himself toward denying the request.' As Daniello (comm. to vv. 52-60) noted, this is a restatement of a Senecan motto (De beneficiis II.i.3), concerning the grace of giving before one is asked, one that Dante had already made his own in Convivio I.viii.16.
For the 'rule' (apparently more consented to than insisted on) that governs nocturnal stasis on the mountain see Sordello's explanation (Purg. VII.53-60).
The Angel of Mercy draws upon the Beatitude found in Matthew 5:9, 'Blessed are the peacemakers,' yet does so in such a way as to indicate tacitly the distinction between 'good' anger (righteous indignation) and the 'bad' form of wrath (ira mala) that is fueled by desire for personal revenge.
The sun having set, its rays touch only the higher reaches of the mountain. It is after 6pm and the first stars are visible.
The protagonist's inner apostrophe of his flagging power of locomotion shows his awareness of the special kind of nocturnal debility afflicting souls on this mountain. As we will see, his physical condition matches that of a man who is slothful.
Since, on the terrace of Wrath, Dante's learning experiences occurred in darkness, and since it is dark as he enters the fourth terrace, he assumes that he may be instructed in virtue by what he will hear.
Just as the poem is now entering its second half and this cantica arriving at its midpoint, so the experience of the repentance of the seven capital vices has come to its central moment with Sloth. From Dante's question and Virgil's answer we also understand that there is a gulf separating the vices below, all of which begin in the love of what is wrongful, from the rest, all of which result from insufficient or improper desire to attain the good. The sin purged here is called acedia in Latin and accidia in Italian. (For a lengthy consideration see Siegfried Wenzel's book [The Sin of Sloth: “Acedia” in Medieval Thought and Literature (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1967)]; see also Andrea Ciotti's entry, which sometimes takes issue with Wenzel, “accidia e accidiosi” (ED.1970.1); for a wider view of acedia see Reinhard Kuhn [The Demon of Noontide: Ennui in Western Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976)], with special reference to Dante on pp. 56-59). In the poem, the word will appear in the next canto, used retrospectively to indicate the sin repented here (Purg. XVIII.132); however, in adjectival form it was present earlier (Inf. VII.123 – see the note to Inf. VII.118-126). Scartazzini (comm. to vv. 85-86) brings St. Thomas (ST I.lxiii.2) into play as the one who affords a clear understanding of this sin, a kind of spiritual torpor accompanied by (or even causing) physical weariness: 'Acedia vero est quaedam tristitia qua homo redditur tardus ad spirituales actus propter corporalem laborem.'
This second extended 'diagram' is excused, as was the first (Inferno XI), by the need to linger awhile before continuing the journey. Compare verse 84 and Inferno XI.10-15.
The rest of the canto is given over, without interruption, to Virgil's discourse on the nature of love. It misses only by a little being the longest speech we have heard spoken in the poem since Ugolino's in Inferno XXXIII.4-75, beaten out by Sordello's recounting of the current denizens of the Valley of the Princes (Purg. VII.87-136) and of course by Marco the Lombard's discourse on the related failures of Church and empire (Purg. XVI.65-129).
The given of Virgil's whole speech is the universality of love. It proceeds from God in all His creation, and from all things that He has created. In the rational beings (angels and humans), it returns to Him; in the lower animals, to one another and to their habitat; in insentient bodies, to their habitat (e.g., water lilies on ponds) or place of origin (e.g., fire always wanting to reach the sky beneath the moon). See Convivio III.iii.2-5, cited by Singleton (comm. to these lines).
Love is of two kinds, natural or 'mental.' Natural love always desires the utmost good, and for rational beings that is God. Thus all humans naturally desire the good. If that were the only love that motivated us, there would be no sin in the world. However, there is another kind of love, one reached by a mental effort, and thus found only in angels and humans. (Since angels have all made their will known, to love God eternally, only humans will be the subjects of Virgil's discourse.) Human beings, using their free wills, may fall into three kinds of sin; choosing the wrong object for their loves (sins repented on the first three terraces); loving the good deficiently (as do the slothful, whom we are about to encounter); loving the good excessively (the sins repented on the three highest terraces, Avarice, Gluttony, Lust). For discussion of the way in which Dante, unlike Andreas Capellanus and Guido Cavalcanti, is only interested in affirming spiritual love, see Pasquazi (“Il Canto XVII del Purgatorio,” in Nuove letture dantesche, vol. IV [Florence: Le Monnier, 1970]), pp. 227-31.
The lines essentially repeat what has been established in vv. 91-96, as though Dante sensed the difficulty most readers would be likely to have with this conceptual poetry.
The argument pauses for its first affirmation: whether we sin or use our (free) wills well, the results observed come from our ways of loving – and our merit or demerit accords with the nature of our loves.
The first consequence of this doctrine is to remove two possible motivations from consideration: hatred of self or hatred of God, both of which are declared to be impossible. Singleton (comm. to vv. 109-111) points out that sinners like Capaneus (Inf. XIV) and Vanni Fucci (Inf XXV) indeed do demonstrate a hatred for God, a feeling possible only in hell, but not in this life on earth. The sins of suicide and blasphemy, however, surely seem to contradict this theoretical notion.
Hatred of self or of God having been discarded as motivations for immoral human conduct, hatred of our neighbor remains, expressed in (1) prideful desire that his success be reversed so that we may be his superior, (2) in envious desire that his success be thwarted, (3) in wrathful desire to take revenge for the harm he has inflicted on us. We realize – although we are told it in case we might not – that these are the sins of Pride, Envy, and Wrath that we have just finished visiting.
The actual midpoint of the poem lies between these two verses, numbers 7116 and 7117 of the poem's 14,233. See discussion in the note to Purgatorio XVIII.133-139.
These two verses refer to all of the other four sins as a group united in at least seeking the good (as was not the case for the first three), but imperfectly.
Virgil now defines Sloth, the first of these two better kinds of sin, as 'laggard love.' Thus, by failing to respond to God's offered love more energetically, the slothful are more rebellious to Him than are the avaricious, gluttonous, and lustful, who are pursuing a secondary good rather than avoiding the primary one. In Dante's day, Sloth was a sin particularly identified with the clergy, with reference not so much to their physical laziness as to their spiritually laggard lives. See Reinhard Kuhn (The Demon of Noontide: Ennui in Western Literature [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976]), pp. 39-64.
This secondary good has been referred to earlier at Purgatorio XVII.98 and will occupy Cantos XX through XXVII, broken into three categories: money, food, and sex.
'The Poet's Number at the Center': Singleton (“The Poet's Number at the Center,” Modern Language Notes 80 [1965], pp. 1-10), noted a chiastic pattern at the heart of the Commedia, indeed at its very numerical center (or near it: since there are fifty cantos that precede Purg. XVII and it is the first of the final fifty; the white space between the sixteenth and seventeenth cantos is the center – at least if we count by cantos). The line lengths of Cantos XIV-XX produce the following apparently deliberate chiasmus:
151 151
145 145 145 145
139
Singleton's conclusion, based on the view that seven is the 'poet's number,' is that Dante has deliberately set a seven-based chiastic pattern at the very center of his poem, and goes on to enjoy the coincidence that his discovery only occurred in 1965, the year marking the seven-hundredth anniversary of Dante's birth. Attacking this finding, Richard J. Pegis (“Numerology and Probability in Dante,” Mediaeval Studies 29 [1967], pp. 370-73) suggests that the pattern is the result of coincidence and produces a second and entirely similar figure found at Purgatorio III-IX:
151
148 148
139 139
136 136
It is Pegis's view that this earlier example of chiasmus (later also observed by Eugenio Ragni [Canto VI,“ in Lectura Dantis Neapolitana: ”Purgatorio,“ ed. Pompeo Giannantonio (Naples: Loffredo, 1989)], p. 116) only makes the likelihood that the one observed by Singleton was aleatory more certain. To Singleton's defense came Logan (”The Poet's Central Numbers,“ Modern Language Notes 86 [1971], pp. 95-98), who not only believes that both patterns are deliberate, but goes on to develop the thesis that there are two parallel cases of still more developed chiasmus at the center of each of the final two cantiche, now calculating the 'number' of each canto as derived from the sum of the lines that make up each canto's length, as follows:
Purgatorio Paradiso
canto lines sum lines sum
XI 142 7 139 13
XII 136 10 145 10
XIII 154 10 142 7
XIV 151 7 139 13
XV 145 10 148 13
XVI 145 10 154 10
XVII 139 13 142 7
XVIII 145 10 136 10
XIX 145 10 148 13
XX 151 7 148 13
XXI 136 10 142 7
XXII 154 10 154 10
XXIII 133 7 139 13
If one tries to establish a control for these findings, one may note that Dante's canto lengths run between 115 and 160 lines. No cantos contain 118, 121, or 127 verses, as is clear from the helpful charts found in Ferrante (”A Poetics of Chaos and Harmony,“ in The Cambridge Companion to Dante, ed. R. Jacoff [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993]), pp. 154-55. The thirteen line lengths that Dante does employ (115, 124, 130, 133, 136, 139, 142, 145, 148, 151, 154, 157, 160) all add up to 7, 10, or 13 except for 130, which equals 4 (1 plus 3 plus 0). But only once after Inferno XX does he produce a canto of 130 lines (Par. III). Thus Logan's claims for an intentional design are possibly compromised by the fact that all the canto lengths in these sections of the two final cantiche necessarily convert to the sums 7, 10, or 13. This lessens the likelihood that these third and fourth examples of chiasmus are deliberate. It is of course possible that Logan is simply right; it is difficult to be certain about such things. Now see the study by Federico Turelli (”Il ruolo della casualità nelle ripetizioni di rima della Commedia,“ Letteratura italiana antica 3 [2002], pp. 507-23), reviewing the problem and arguing that both of the seven-fold symmetrical sequences found in the Purgatorio (III-IX, XIV-XX) are the result of deliberate plan and do have structural significance. And see Colette de Callata,y-van der Mersch (Le Déchiffrement de Dante, 3 vols. [Peeters: Louvain, 1994-97]), vol. I, pp. 24-26, also seeking to unriddle the design in the lengths of Dante's cantos. Her argument is immediately compromised when she claims that the thirteen canto lengths represent a choice from among forty-five possibilities (cantos of from 115 to 160 verses [and thus actually 46]), when in fact, because of terza rima, Dante had only sixteen available choices within that range. That sort of carelessness is close to fatal to a numerological argument that requires every element in it to be convincing. See also her accountancy (p. 79), invoking a system built on sevens, that somehow represents the cantos devoted to the earthly paradise as being seven, while they are indeed six (XXVIII to XXXIII).
For still another derivation of a pattern from Singleton's finding see Riccardo Ambrosini (”Sul messianismo di Dante: A proposito del canto XVII del Paradiso,“ L'Alighieri 18 [2001]), p. 86, suggesting that it is significant that each successive 'central' canto, numbered XVII, contains three more verses than its precursor, 136, 139, and 142. Ambrosini points out that no other set of three cantos reveals such a progression. Nonetheless, one feels compelled to ask whether or not this 'pattern' might simply be the result of chance.
For a brief consideration of the increasing length, as the poem proceeds, of Dante's cantos see the note to Inferno VI.28-32.
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Ricorditi, lettor, se mai ne l'alpe
ti colse nebbia per la qual vedessi
non altrimenti che per pelle talpe,
come, quando i vapori umidi e spessi
a diradar cominciansi, la spera
del sol debilemente entra per essi;
e fia la tua imagine leggera
in giugnere a veder com' io rividi
lo sole in pria, che già nel corcar era.
Sì, pareggiando i miei co' passi fidi
del mio maestro, usci' fuor di tal nube
ai raggi morti già ne' bassi lidi.
O imaginativa che ne rube
talvolta sì di fuor, ch'om non s'accorge
perché dintorno suonin mille tube,
chi move te, se 'l senso non ti porge?
Moveti lume che nel ciel s'informa,
per sé o per voler che giù lo scorge.
De l'empiezza di lei che mutò forma
ne l'uccel ch'a cantar più si diletta,
ne l'imagine mia apparve l'orma;
e qui fu la mia mente sì ristretta
dentro da sé, che di fuor non venìa
cosa che fosse allor da lei ricetta.
Poi piovve dentro a l'alta fantasia
un crucifisso, dispettoso e fero
ne la sua vista, e cotal si moria;
intorno ad esso era il grande Assüero,
Estèr sua sposa e 'l giusto Mardoceo,
che fu al dire e al far così intero.
E come questa imagine rompeo
sé per sé stessa, a guisa d'una bulla
cui manca l'acqua sotto qual si feo,
surse in mia visione una fanciulla
piangendo forte, e dicea: “O regina,
perché per ira hai voluto esser nulla?
Ancisa t'hai per non perder Lavina;
or m'hai perduta! Io son essa che lutto,
madre, a la tua pria ch'a l'altrui ruina.”
Come si frange il sonno ove di butto
nova luce percuote il viso chiuso,
che fratto guizza pria che muoia tutto;
così l'imaginar mio cadde giuso
tosto che lume il volto mi percosse,
maggior assai che quel ch'è in nostro uso.
I' mi volgea per veder ov' io fosse,
quando una voce disse “Qui si monta,”
che da ogne altro intento mi rimosse;
e fece la mia voglia tanto pronta
di riguardar chi era che parlava,
che mai non posa, se non si raffronta.
Ma come al sol che nostra vista grava
e per soverchio sua figura vela,
così la mia virtù quivi mancava.
“Questo è divino spirito, che ne la
via da ir sù ne drizza sanza prego,
e col suo lume sé medesmo cela.
Sì fa con noi, come l'uom si fa sego;
ché quale aspetta prego e l'uopo vede,
malignamente già si mette al nego.
Or accordiamo a tanto invito il piede;
procacciam di salir pria che s'abbui,
ché poi non si poria, se 'l dì non riede.”
Così disse il mio duca, e io con lui
volgemmo i nostri passi ad una scala;
e tosto ch'io al primo grado fui,
senti'mi presso quasi un muover d'ala
e ventarmi nel viso e dir: “Beati
pacifici, che son sanz' ira mala!”
Già eran sovra noi tanto levati
li ultimi raggi che la notte segue,
che le stelle apparivan da più lati.
“O virtù mia, perché sì ti dilegue?”
fra me stesso dicea, ché mi sentiva
la possa de le gambe posta in triegue.
Noi eravam dove più non saliva
la scala sù, ed eravamo affissi,
pur come nave ch'a la piaggia arriva.
E io attesi un poco, s'io udissi
alcuna cosa nel novo girone;
poi mi volsi al maestro mio, e dissi:
“Dolce mio padre, dì, quale offensione
si purga qui nel giro dove semo?
Se i piè si stanno, non stea tuo sermone.”
Ed elli a me: “L'amor del bene, scemo
del suo dover, quiritta si ristora;
qui si ribatte il mal tardato remo.
Ma perché più aperto intendi ancora,
volgi la mente a me, e prenderai
alcun buon frutto di nostra dimora.”
“Né creator né creatura mai,”
cominciò el, “figliuol, fu sanza amore,
o naturale o d'animo; e tu 'l sai.
Lo naturale è sempre sanza errore,
ma l'altro puote errar per malo obietto
o per troppo o per poco di vigore.
Mentre ch'elli è nel primo ben diretto,
e ne' secondi sé stesso misura,
esser non può cagion di mal diletto;
ma quando al mal si torce, o con più cura
o con men che non dee corre nel bene,
contra 'l fattore adovra sua fattura.
Quinci comprender puoi ch'esser convene
amor sementa in voi d'ogne virtute
e d'ogne operazion che merta pene.
Or, perché mai non può da la salute
amor del suo subietto volger viso,
da l'odio proprio son le cose tute;
e perché intender non si può diviso,
e per sé stante, alcuno esser dal primo,
da quello odiare ogne effetto è deciso.
Resta, se dividendo bene stimo,
che 'l mal che s'ama è del prossimo; ed esso
amor nasce in tre modi in vostro limo.
É chi, per esser suo vicin soppresso,
spera eccellenza, e sol per questo brama
ch'el sia di sua grandezza in basso messo;
è chi podere, grazia, onore e fama
teme di perder perch' altri sormonti,
onde s'attrista sì che 'l contrario ama;
ed è chi per ingiuria par ch'aonti,
sì che si fa de la vendetta ghiotto,
e tal convien che 'l male altrui impronti.
Questo triforme amor qua giù di sotto
si piange: or vo' che tu de l'altro intende,
che corre al ben con ordine corrotto.
Ciascun confusamente un bene apprende
nel qual si queti l'animo, e disira;
per che di giugner lui ciascun contende.
Se lento amore a lui veder vi tira
o a lui acquistar, questa cornice,
dopo giusto penter, ve ne martira.
Altro ben è che non fa l'uom felice;
non è felicità, non è la buona
essenza, d'ogne ben frutto e radice.
L'amor ch'ad esso troppo s'abbandona,
di sovr' a noi si piange per tre cerchi;
ma come tripartito si ragiona,
tacciolo, acciò che tu per te ne cerchi.”
Remember, Reader, if e'er in the Alps
A mist o'ertook thee, through which thou couldst see
Not otherwise than through its membrane mole,
How, when the vapours humid and condensed
Begin to dissipate themselves, the sphere
Of the sun feebly enters in among them,
And thy imagination will be swift
In coming to perceive how I re-saw
The sun at first, that was already setting.
Thus, to the faithful footsteps of my Master
Mating mine own, I issued from that cloud
To rays already dead on the low shores.
O thou, Imagination, that dost steal us
So from without sometimes, that man perceives not,
Although around may sound a thousand trumpets,
Who moveth thee, if sense impel thee not?
Moves thee a light, which in the heaven takes form,
By self, or by a will that downward guides it.
Of her impiety, who changed her form
Into the bird that most delights in singing,
In my imagining appeared the trace;
And hereupon my mind was so withdrawn
Within itself, that from without there came
Nothing that then might be received by it.
Then reigned within my lofty fantasy
One crucified, disdainful and ferocious
In countenance, and even thus was dying.
Around him were the great Ahasuerus,
Esther his wife, and the just Mordecai,
Who was in word and action so entire.
And even as this image burst asunder
Of its own self, in fashion of a bubble
In which the water it was made of fails,
There rose up in my vision a young maiden
Bitterly weeping, and she said: "O queen,
Why hast thou wished in anger to be naught?
Thou'st slain thyself, Lavinia not to lose;
Now hast thou lost me; I am she who mourns,
Mother, at thine ere at another's ruin."
As sleep is broken, when upon a sudden
New light strikes in upon the eyelids closed,
And broken quivers ere it dieth wholly,
So this imagining of mine fell down
As soon as the effulgence smote my face,
Greater by far than what is in our wont.
I turned me round to see where I might be,
When said a voice, "Here is the passage up;"
Which from all other purposes removed me,
And made my wish so full of eagerness
To look and see who was it that was speaking,
It never rests till meeting face to face;
But as before the sun, which quells the sight,
And in its own excess its figure veils,
Even so my power was insufficient here.
"This is a spirit divine, who in the way
Of going up directs us without asking,
And who with his own light himself conceals.
He does with us as man doth with himself;
For he who sees the need, and waits the asking,
Malignly leans already tow'rds denial.
Accord we now our feet to such inviting,
Let us make haste to mount ere it grow dark;
For then we could not till the day return."
Thus my Conductor said; and I and he
Together turned our footsteps to a stairway;
And I, as soon as the first step I reached,
Near me perceived a motion as of wings,
And fanning in the face, and saying, "'Beati
Pacifici,' who are without ill anger."
Already over us were so uplifted
The latest sunbeams, which the night pursues,
That upon many sides the stars appeared.
"O manhood mine, why dost thou vanish so?"
I said within myself; for I perceived
The vigour of my legs was put in truce.
We at the point were where no more ascends
The stairway upward, and were motionless,
Even as a ship, which at the shore arrives;
And I gave heed a little, if I might hear
Aught whatsoever in the circle new;
Then to my Master turned me round and said:
"Say, my sweet Father, what delinquency
Is purged here in the circle where we are?
Although our feet may pause, pause not thy speech."
And he to me: "The love of good, remiss
In what it should have done, is here restored;
Here plied again the ill-belated oar;
But still more openly to understand,
Turn unto me thy mind, and thou shalt gather
Some profitable fruit from our delay.
Neither Creator nor a creature ever,
Son," he began, "was destitute of love
Natural or spiritual; and thou knowest it.
The natural was ever without error;
But err the other may by evil object,
Or by too much, or by too little vigour.
While in the first it well directed is,
And in the second moderates itself,
It cannot be the cause of sinful pleasure;
But when to ill it turns, and, with more care
Or lesser than it ought, runs after good,
'Gainst the Creator works his own creation.
Hence thou mayst comprehend that love must be
The seed within yourselves of every virtue,
And every act that merits punishment.
Now inasmuch as never from the welfare
Of its own subject can love turn its sight,
From their own hatred all things are secure;
And since we cannot think of any being
Standing alone, nor from the First divided,
Of hating Him is all desire cut off.
Hence if, discriminating, I judge well,
The evil that one loves is of one's neighbour,
And this is born in three modes in your clay.
There are, who, by abasement of their neighbour,
Hope to excel, and therefore only long
That from his greatness he may be cast down;
There are, who power, grace, honour, and renown
Fear they may lose because another rises,
Thence are so sad that the reverse they love;
And there are those whom injury seems to chafe,
So that it makes them greedy for revenge,
And such must needs shape out another's harm.
This threefold love is wept for down below;
Now of the other will I have thee hear,
That runneth after good with measure faulty.
Each one confusedly a good conceives
Wherein the mind may rest, and longeth for it;
Therefore to overtake it each one strives.
If languid love to look on this attract you,
Or in attaining unto it, this cornice,
After just penitence, torments you for it.
There's other good that does not make man happy;
'Tis not felicity, 'tis not the good
Essence, of every good the fruit and root.
The love that yields itself too much to this
Above us is lamented in three circles;
But how tripartite it may be described,
I say not, that thou seek it for thyself."
This marks the first time that an address to the reader begins a canto, here just at the midpoint of the poem. (Two later cantos will, however, begin with such apostrophe: Paradiso II and XIII.) These opening lines are similetic in nature if not precisely so in form.
Dante is apparently countering certain contemporary views, which held that moles were completely sightless (see Brunetto Latini, Tresor I.197, cited by Scartazzini [comm. to verse 3]). Tozer (comm. to verse 3) cites Virgil, Georgics I.183: 'oculis capti... talpae' (sightless moles). Benvenuto (comm. to vv. 1-6), who says that he thought of this passage once, when he was caught in mountain mists between Florence and Bologna, understood that Dante meant that moles could see, if only weakly (debiliter), through the skin that covers their eyes. Supporting this view, Lombardi (comm. to vv. 1-6) suggests that Dante is in accord with Aristotle, Historia animalium I.9. (For the question of Dante's knowledge of Aristotle's work on natural history as it was shaped by the translations of Michael Scot and the commentaries of Avicenna and Albertus Magnus, see Cesare Vasoli's note to Convivio II.viii.10 [Milan: Ricciardi, 1988], p. 184.) For a modern view of what kind of sight in what kind of mole is at stake here, see Trucchi (comm. to this passage).
This entire section of the canto is dominated by words that often in Dante refer to a higher form of sight, in contrast with the darkness in which the scene begins. In the first forty-three verses we encounter ten occurrences of words for seeing as follows: forms of imagine (imagine, imaginativa, imaginar) at vv. 7, 13, 21, 31, 43; of vedere (vedessi, veder, vista, visïone) at vv. 2, 8, 27, 34; the word fantasia at verse 25. These three forms occur thirty-eight times in the poem; thus more than one-fourth of all occurrences of this group of words occupies less than 1/300 of the poem.
The poet returns briefly to the narrative mode in order to set the scene for what is about to follow: it is just after sunset at the shore of the mountain, with the sun's rays still striking the higher reaches of its slopes.
This passage gave birth, in the early commentators, to the repetition of a charming story. Dante, having found a book he had never seen before in Siena, read it just where he found it, in a street stall, so that he might fix it in his mind, and did so for more than three hours one afternoon. When someone later asked him whether he had been disturbed by the wedding festivities that had occurred during his reading, he expressed no awareness that any such things had occurred. This 'incident' derives from Boccaccio's Trattatello and is also reported by Benvenuto (comm. to this passage).
On these equivalent powers of the soul, the phantasia or imaginatio, see St. Thomas (ST I.lxxviii.4): 'the phantasy or imagination is like a treasure house of images received by the senses' (cited by Sally Mussetter, “Fantasy,” in Richard Lansing, ed., Dante Encyclopedia [New York: Garland, 2000]). Thus both 'imagination' and 'phantasy' have a far different meaning in the works of Dante than in anything written after the Romantic era, where the imagination, given its 'esemplastic power' in the unforgettable phrase of Coleridge, rather than merely receiving them, produces images. For discussions of the imaginative faculty see Murry Wright Bundy (The Theory of Imagination in Classical and Medieval Thought [Urbana: University of Illinois, 1927]); Harry Austryn Wolfson (“The Internal Sense in Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew Philosophic Texts,” Harvard Theological Review 28 [1935], pp. 69-133); and Ignazio Baldelli (“Visione, immaginazione e fantasia nella Vita nuova,” in I sogni nel Medioevo, ed. Tullio Gregory [Rome: Edizioni dell'Atene, 1985], pp. 1-10). See also Paul Arvisu Dumol, “Imagination,” in Richard Lansing, ed., Dante Encyclopedia (New York: Garland, 2000). On the supernatural character of the informing light for the visions that follow, with consideration of the key terms imagine, imaginativa, and fantasia, see Kenelm Foster (“The Human Spirit in Action: Purgatorio XVII,” Dante Studies 88 [1970]), pp. 21-23; and Teodolinda Barolini (The Undivine “Comedy”: Detheologizing Dante [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992]), pp. 152-55. And see Patrick Boyde (Perception and passion in Dante's “Comedy” [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993]), pp. 44-50, on 'apprehension' and its reliance on imaginatio/phantasia.
As the Anonimo Fiorentino (comm. to vv. 13-15) explains, what is experienced by the five senses is registered in the senso comune and then conserved, without its physical elements, in the imagination, which, in contrast to the senso comune, the recipient of sense impressions only so long as they are present, is able to preserve these impressions. To paraphrase Dante's ruminative question, he turns to the imaginative faculty within himself to ask, 'How do you so remove our attention from outer reality that we do not even notice the most intrusive events? And what informs you if not a sense impression? A light that takes form in Heaven either naturally (i.e., through the natural influence of the stars) or through the will of God.' It seems clear that the visions that follow, like those experienced by the protagonist two cantos earlier (see the note to Purg. XV.85-86), are sent to him (and to the penitents on this terrace – but not to Virgil [see the note to Purg. XV.130-132]) directly by God.
Is the division of the sin of violence in Inferno remembered here, with each of the three exemplary figures guilty of one of the sins of violence portrayed in Inferno: against others (Procne), against oneself (Amata), and against God (Haman)? For this possibility see notes to Inferno VII.109-114 and XII.16-21 (last paragraph), as well as Hollander (Allegory in Dante's “Commedia” [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969]), pp. 310-11. Wrath is defined, later on in this canto (vv. 121-123), as involving the hardened will in a desire for revenge (vendetta). It is clear that the sort of anger repented on this terrace is not the same sin that we encountered in Inferno VII-VIII, where we saw those who had been overcome by intemperate anger. Here we observe the results of wrathful behavior formed with deliberation.
It seems clear both that Dante has once again been favored by God-sent ecstatic visions and that Virgil now knows better than to attempt to inject himself into the proceedings: he is utterly silent throughout the scene, although we may imagine that Dante is once again manifesting 'drunken' behavior to anyone who observes him (see Purg. XV.121-123).
For Dante's earlier advertence to Ovid's story of Philomel and Procne see Purgatorio IX.13-15 and note. There Philomel is dealt with as a sympathetic figure; here Procne, her sister, is made exemplary of the sin of Wrath for murdering her own son, Itys, in order to take vengeance upon Tereus for raping her sister. It may seem odd to today's readers, but Dante thinks of Procne as the nightingale, Philomel as the swallow. (See discussion in the note to Purg. IX.13-15.) This ecstatic vision (see Purg. XV.85-86) is sent into Dante's mind, we must assume, by God.
Once again the poet insists on the extraordinary and extrasensory nature of his visionary experience.
There can be little doubt: the notion of these visions as having 'rained down' into the image-receiving faculty of his soul cements the claim made for them. Here is part of Singleton's comment on this verse: 'The phantasy, or imaginativa, is “lofty” because of the experience of a vision coming from such a source. For this adjectival usage, cf. “la morta poesì,” Purg. I.7; “la scritta morta,” Inf. VIII.127; “alto ingegno,” Inf. II.7; and again “alta fantasia” in Par. XXXIII.142.' It should perhaps be noted that Singleton here probably only rightly contradicts his own previous gloss of 'alto ingegno' at Inferno II.7, which he then interpreted as meaning 'the poet's own genius.' See the note to Inferno II.7-9.
That the poet here uses the very phrase 'alta fantasia,' which will mark his final vision of the Trinity three lines from the end of the poem (Par. XXXIII.142), underlines the importance of this 'trial run' for his capacity as visionary protagonist (and eventually God-inspired poet).
Once again one must know the story in order to understand the meaning of the vision, which is presented elliptically, a technique Dante employs in all three examples in these lines (19-39). In none of these is the exemplary figure named. This passage is perhaps the most striking in this respect, since the three 'supporting players' are all named, while we must supply the name of Haman. Like Procne, Haman is enraged against another (Mordecai, for not bowing down to him, when he had been promoted to being Ahasuerus's prime minister: see Esther 3:5, where Haman is described as being 'full of wrath' [iratus est valde]); like Procne, he tries to take revenge by killing others, deciding to put to death all the Jews in the kingdom of Ahasuerus. At Esther's urging Ahasuerus rescinds the decree Haman had wrung from him, thus saving God's people, the Jews in their Persian exile, and has Haman put to death on the gallows (crux in the Vulgate at Esther 5:14, thus accounting for Dante's crucifisso at verse 26).
The 'bubble' in Dante's vision breaks as a bubble does when it rises above the water that contained it, only to give place to another, the final vision of this terrace.
Lavinia, anonymous at first but soon to name herself (verse 37), addresses her unnamed mother, Amata, the consort of Latinus, king of Latium, and reproaches her for her suicide. As Bosco/Reggio (comm. to vv. 31-39) point out, Dante, in the spring of 1311, deals with this scene (Aen. XII.595-603) in his second epistle to Henry VII and refers correctly to the context of Amata's suicide (Epist. VII.24), i.e., she kills herself because she believes that her opposition to her daughter's marriage to Aeneas has resulted in a failed war and the death of Turnus (whom she wrongly assumes to have been killed when she sees the soldiers of Aeneas approaching the city without opposition). Following expressions of puzzlement with Dante's treatment of this Virgilian text by Porena (comm. to these lines), Bosco and Reggio too are puzzled that Dante here develops the situation differently, and suggest that perhaps Dante wants here to make Amata a more sympathetic character. But perhaps he had simpler plans.
In Aeneid VII.286-405 Virgil presents the results of Juno's anger at Latinus's promise of Lavinia in marriage to Aeneas (and not to Turnus, the suitor preferred by Amata, described in verse 345 as a woman on fire, stirred by angers [irae]). Juno's wrath in turn stirs the Fury Alecto, who comes to earth and puts a venomous snake in Amata's breast. Poisoned by its venom, Amata goes mad with angry grief and, in the guise of a Bacchante, takes Lavinia to the countryside in the attempt to stop the marriage. All of this insubordination will, of course, eventually fail. It is not clear that Dante is reading the text of Virgil's twelfth book any differently now than he was when he wrote his second letter to Henry (whether that was written before or after this passage). At whom must Amata be angry, from the point of view of Lavinia? Aeneas, because he will now have Lavinia in marriage. In the epistle, Florence, rejecting her rightful ruler, Henry, is compared to suicidal Amata. There is no reason for such not to be Dante's understanding here. It is perhaps coincidental that the description of Amata's suicide is preceded in Virgil by a simile comparing the losing Latians to bees whose hive has been penetrated by the farmer's emetic smoke; nonetheless, our scene is also preceded by the smoke of anger. Amata, in this respect similar to the two previous exemplary figures, kills someone else in order to harm the person whom she truly hates, Aeneas. That someone else is herself. Hers is the secret of the terrorist, dying to let her enemy know the depths of her envious hatred.
The 'death of yet another' with which the passage ends refers to Turnus in such a way as to indicate that Lavinia understood that her mother had incorrectly assumed that Turnus was already dead, just as she does in Virgil's poem.
The simile is not difficult or surprising. Just as a dreaming sleeper, awakened by a sunbeam, loses his hold on his dream in bits and pieces before it utterly disappears, so was Dante jarred from his visionary sleep by the sudden brightness of the Angel of Mercy. There may be a reference here to verses in the Aeneid (II.268-269), as was first suggested by Venturi (comm. to verse 42): 'It was the hour when for weary mortals their first rest begins and, by gift of the gods, deliciously twines round them' (Tempus erat, quo prima quies mortalibus aegris / incipit et dono divum gratissima serpit). Virgil's description of the beginning of sleep is, according to Venturi, reflected in Dante's description of its ending, both passages featuring forms of verbs for serpentine movements (serpit, guizza). On the other hand, most commentators suggest that Dante's guizzare (shudder, quiver, wriggle) is more likely to be used to indicate the dying movement made by a fish out of water. While Venturi's proposal is still seconded by a commentator or two, most currently do not refer to it. This angelic light outshines even that of the sun, explains Benvenuto (comm. to these verses) 'because an angel gives off light more splendid than any light found in the world.'
This simile should be remembered in the reading of the final simile of awakening in the poem (Par. XXXIII.58-63). Dante's fascination with the state between dream and waking is a notable part of his program of investigating the mental state of humans (see the note to Inf. XXX.136-141).
As Singleton notes, in this verse we have again an insistence on paying attention to a single thing (here the angel's permissive command), to the exclusion of all others.
Perhaps a paraphrase of Virgil's remarks will be helpful: 'This divine spirit does what we wish without our asking, hiding itself in its own radiance (and thus allowing us to see); and it deals with us as we deal with ourselves, for he who sees a need, and yet waits to be asked, unkindly predisposes himself toward denying the request.' As Daniello (comm. to vv. 52-60) noted, this is a restatement of a Senecan motto (De beneficiis II.i.3), concerning the grace of giving before one is asked, one that Dante had already made his own in Convivio I.viii.16.
For the 'rule' (apparently more consented to than insisted on) that governs nocturnal stasis on the mountain see Sordello's explanation (Purg. VII.53-60).
The Angel of Mercy draws upon the Beatitude found in Matthew 5:9, 'Blessed are the peacemakers,' yet does so in such a way as to indicate tacitly the distinction between 'good' anger (righteous indignation) and the 'bad' form of wrath (ira mala) that is fueled by desire for personal revenge.
The sun having set, its rays touch only the higher reaches of the mountain. It is after 6pm and the first stars are visible.
The protagonist's inner apostrophe of his flagging power of locomotion shows his awareness of the special kind of nocturnal debility afflicting souls on this mountain. As we will see, his physical condition matches that of a man who is slothful.
Since, on the terrace of Wrath, Dante's learning experiences occurred in darkness, and since it is dark as he enters the fourth terrace, he assumes that he may be instructed in virtue by what he will hear.
Just as the poem is now entering its second half and this cantica arriving at its midpoint, so the experience of the repentance of the seven capital vices has come to its central moment with Sloth. From Dante's question and Virgil's answer we also understand that there is a gulf separating the vices below, all of which begin in the love of what is wrongful, from the rest, all of which result from insufficient or improper desire to attain the good. The sin purged here is called acedia in Latin and accidia in Italian. (For a lengthy consideration see Siegfried Wenzel's book [The Sin of Sloth: “Acedia” in Medieval Thought and Literature (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1967)]; see also Andrea Ciotti's entry, which sometimes takes issue with Wenzel, “accidia e accidiosi” (ED.1970.1); for a wider view of acedia see Reinhard Kuhn [The Demon of Noontide: Ennui in Western Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976)], with special reference to Dante on pp. 56-59). In the poem, the word will appear in the next canto, used retrospectively to indicate the sin repented here (Purg. XVIII.132); however, in adjectival form it was present earlier (Inf. VII.123 – see the note to Inf. VII.118-126). Scartazzini (comm. to vv. 85-86) brings St. Thomas (ST I.lxiii.2) into play as the one who affords a clear understanding of this sin, a kind of spiritual torpor accompanied by (or even causing) physical weariness: 'Acedia vero est quaedam tristitia qua homo redditur tardus ad spirituales actus propter corporalem laborem.'
This second extended 'diagram' is excused, as was the first (Inferno XI), by the need to linger awhile before continuing the journey. Compare verse 84 and Inferno XI.10-15.
The rest of the canto is given over, without interruption, to Virgil's discourse on the nature of love. It misses only by a little being the longest speech we have heard spoken in the poem since Ugolino's in Inferno XXXIII.4-75, beaten out by Sordello's recounting of the current denizens of the Valley of the Princes (Purg. VII.87-136) and of course by Marco the Lombard's discourse on the related failures of Church and empire (Purg. XVI.65-129).
The given of Virgil's whole speech is the universality of love. It proceeds from God in all His creation, and from all things that He has created. In the rational beings (angels and humans), it returns to Him; in the lower animals, to one another and to their habitat; in insentient bodies, to their habitat (e.g., water lilies on ponds) or place of origin (e.g., fire always wanting to reach the sky beneath the moon). See Convivio III.iii.2-5, cited by Singleton (comm. to these lines).
Love is of two kinds, natural or 'mental.' Natural love always desires the utmost good, and for rational beings that is God. Thus all humans naturally desire the good. If that were the only love that motivated us, there would be no sin in the world. However, there is another kind of love, one reached by a mental effort, and thus found only in angels and humans. (Since angels have all made their will known, to love God eternally, only humans will be the subjects of Virgil's discourse.) Human beings, using their free wills, may fall into three kinds of sin; choosing the wrong object for their loves (sins repented on the first three terraces); loving the good deficiently (as do the slothful, whom we are about to encounter); loving the good excessively (the sins repented on the three highest terraces, Avarice, Gluttony, Lust). For discussion of the way in which Dante, unlike Andreas Capellanus and Guido Cavalcanti, is only interested in affirming spiritual love, see Pasquazi (“Il Canto XVII del Purgatorio,” in Nuove letture dantesche, vol. IV [Florence: Le Monnier, 1970]), pp. 227-31.
The lines essentially repeat what has been established in vv. 91-96, as though Dante sensed the difficulty most readers would be likely to have with this conceptual poetry.
The argument pauses for its first affirmation: whether we sin or use our (free) wills well, the results observed come from our ways of loving – and our merit or demerit accords with the nature of our loves.
The first consequence of this doctrine is to remove two possible motivations from consideration: hatred of self or hatred of God, both of which are declared to be impossible. Singleton (comm. to vv. 109-111) points out that sinners like Capaneus (Inf. XIV) and Vanni Fucci (Inf XXV) indeed do demonstrate a hatred for God, a feeling possible only in hell, but not in this life on earth. The sins of suicide and blasphemy, however, surely seem to contradict this theoretical notion.
Hatred of self or of God having been discarded as motivations for immoral human conduct, hatred of our neighbor remains, expressed in (1) prideful desire that his success be reversed so that we may be his superior, (2) in envious desire that his success be thwarted, (3) in wrathful desire to take revenge for the harm he has inflicted on us. We realize – although we are told it in case we might not – that these are the sins of Pride, Envy, and Wrath that we have just finished visiting.
The actual midpoint of the poem lies between these two verses, numbers 7116 and 7117 of the poem's 14,233. See discussion in the note to Purgatorio XVIII.133-139.
These two verses refer to all of the other four sins as a group united in at least seeking the good (as was not the case for the first three), but imperfectly.
Virgil now defines Sloth, the first of these two better kinds of sin, as 'laggard love.' Thus, by failing to respond to God's offered love more energetically, the slothful are more rebellious to Him than are the avaricious, gluttonous, and lustful, who are pursuing a secondary good rather than avoiding the primary one. In Dante's day, Sloth was a sin particularly identified with the clergy, with reference not so much to their physical laziness as to their spiritually laggard lives. See Reinhard Kuhn (The Demon of Noontide: Ennui in Western Literature [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976]), pp. 39-64.
This secondary good has been referred to earlier at Purgatorio XVII.98 and will occupy Cantos XX through XXVII, broken into three categories: money, food, and sex.
'The Poet's Number at the Center': Singleton (“The Poet's Number at the Center,” Modern Language Notes 80 [1965], pp. 1-10), noted a chiastic pattern at the heart of the Commedia, indeed at its very numerical center (or near it: since there are fifty cantos that precede Purg. XVII and it is the first of the final fifty; the white space between the sixteenth and seventeenth cantos is the center – at least if we count by cantos). The line lengths of Cantos XIV-XX produce the following apparently deliberate chiasmus:
151 151
145 145 145 145
139
Singleton's conclusion, based on the view that seven is the 'poet's number,' is that Dante has deliberately set a seven-based chiastic pattern at the very center of his poem, and goes on to enjoy the coincidence that his discovery only occurred in 1965, the year marking the seven-hundredth anniversary of Dante's birth. Attacking this finding, Richard J. Pegis (“Numerology and Probability in Dante,” Mediaeval Studies 29 [1967], pp. 370-73) suggests that the pattern is the result of coincidence and produces a second and entirely similar figure found at Purgatorio III-IX:
151
148 148
139 139
136 136
It is Pegis's view that this earlier example of chiasmus (later also observed by Eugenio Ragni [Canto VI,“ in Lectura Dantis Neapolitana: ”Purgatorio,“ ed. Pompeo Giannantonio (Naples: Loffredo, 1989)], p. 116) only makes the likelihood that the one observed by Singleton was aleatory more certain. To Singleton's defense came Logan (”The Poet's Central Numbers,“ Modern Language Notes 86 [1971], pp. 95-98), who not only believes that both patterns are deliberate, but goes on to develop the thesis that there are two parallel cases of still more developed chiasmus at the center of each of the final two cantiche, now calculating the 'number' of each canto as derived from the sum of the lines that make up each canto's length, as follows:
Purgatorio Paradiso
canto lines sum lines sum
XI 142 7 139 13
XII 136 10 145 10
XIII 154 10 142 7
XIV 151 7 139 13
XV 145 10 148 13
XVI 145 10 154 10
XVII 139 13 142 7
XVIII 145 10 136 10
XIX 145 10 148 13
XX 151 7 148 13
XXI 136 10 142 7
XXII 154 10 154 10
XXIII 133 7 139 13
If one tries to establish a control for these findings, one may note that Dante's canto lengths run between 115 and 160 lines. No cantos contain 118, 121, or 127 verses, as is clear from the helpful charts found in Ferrante (”A Poetics of Chaos and Harmony,“ in The Cambridge Companion to Dante, ed. R. Jacoff [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993]), pp. 154-55. The thirteen line lengths that Dante does employ (115, 124, 130, 133, 136, 139, 142, 145, 148, 151, 154, 157, 160) all add up to 7, 10, or 13 except for 130, which equals 4 (1 plus 3 plus 0). But only once after Inferno XX does he produce a canto of 130 lines (Par. III). Thus Logan's claims for an intentional design are possibly compromised by the fact that all the canto lengths in these sections of the two final cantiche necessarily convert to the sums 7, 10, or 13. This lessens the likelihood that these third and fourth examples of chiasmus are deliberate. It is of course possible that Logan is simply right; it is difficult to be certain about such things. Now see the study by Federico Turelli (”Il ruolo della casualità nelle ripetizioni di rima della Commedia,“ Letteratura italiana antica 3 [2002], pp. 507-23), reviewing the problem and arguing that both of the seven-fold symmetrical sequences found in the Purgatorio (III-IX, XIV-XX) are the result of deliberate plan and do have structural significance. And see Colette de Callata,y-van der Mersch (Le Déchiffrement de Dante, 3 vols. [Peeters: Louvain, 1994-97]), vol. I, pp. 24-26, also seeking to unriddle the design in the lengths of Dante's cantos. Her argument is immediately compromised when she claims that the thirteen canto lengths represent a choice from among forty-five possibilities (cantos of from 115 to 160 verses [and thus actually 46]), when in fact, because of terza rima, Dante had only sixteen available choices within that range. That sort of carelessness is close to fatal to a numerological argument that requires every element in it to be convincing. See also her accountancy (p. 79), invoking a system built on sevens, that somehow represents the cantos devoted to the earthly paradise as being seven, while they are indeed six (XXVIII to XXXIII).
For still another derivation of a pattern from Singleton's finding see Riccardo Ambrosini (”Sul messianismo di Dante: A proposito del canto XVII del Paradiso,“ L'Alighieri 18 [2001]), p. 86, suggesting that it is significant that each successive 'central' canto, numbered XVII, contains three more verses than its precursor, 136, 139, and 142. Ambrosini points out that no other set of three cantos reveals such a progression. Nonetheless, one feels compelled to ask whether or not this 'pattern' might simply be the result of chance.
For a brief consideration of the increasing length, as the poem proceeds, of Dante's cantos see the note to Inferno VI.28-32.
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